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{{reflist}}*Jan Richard Heier. "The Short Life of the ''Richard A. Bingham'': A Pensacola Lumber Schooner." ''Florida Historical Quarterly'', Fall 2000.
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| religion =[[McIlwain Presbyterian Church|Presbyterian]]
| spouse =[[Fannie Augusta Oerting]]
| parents =[[Amos Reed Bingham|Amos Reed]] and Caroline Merry Bingham| children =Seven
| signature =
| signaturesize =Dorothy, Marjorie, Richard, Hilda, Charles, Harry, and Thomas
}}
'''Frasier Franklin Bingham''' ([[1872]]-[[1953]]) was a lumber magnate and shipbuilder.
==Early life==
==In Pensacola==
In [[1890]], at the age of eighteen, Bingham moved to Pensacola from Kansas City, Missouri. He obtained a job as a clerk and stenographer for the [[Southern States Lumber Company]]. In 1900 he became a director, helping to manage the company's 400,000-acre holdings; by shortly thereafter he was made assistant general manager of the company. He stayed with Southern States until it ceased operation in [[1930]]. In the late 1890s, Bingham and his father [[Amos Reed Bingham]] started the [[A. R. Bingham and Son Shipping Company]], initially running consignment goods. The company soon began shipping lumber, using Bingham's connections in the industry to garner clients. One of their earliest ships, the ''Richard A. Bingham'' (named for the younger Bingham's second child, born in 1902), had a disastrous pair of outings in [[1903]]. In the former, Captain [[1913Raymond Leslie Merritt]] set two crew members adrift at sea in a [[Wikipedia:yawl|yawl]] after suspecting a mutiny; the two men made landfall at Cozumel two weeks later and returned to Pensacola, accusing Merritt of going "insane" from lack of rum. In the latter excursion, the ship's new, inexperienced captain encountered a fierce storm and afterwards put in at Frontera, Mexico (which he had mistaken for Belize City, some 700 miles away). The port was too shallow for the weighted ship, so a third of its cargo was assistant general manager removed and steep fees were imposed. Bingham was summoned to settle the matter, and several weeks later he settled the matter at great expense and joined the crew for the remaining trip to Belize. He oversaw the loading of mahogany logs onto the ship and afterwards took a separate boat back to New Orleans, but the ''Richard'' struck a reef a day after its departure and was wrecked. The crew survived, but the total loss to Bingham was about $7,000, or more than 80 percent of his business assets at the companytime.
During World War I, Bingham opened a shipyard that built wooden schooners. The shipyard turned out over $200,000 worth of vessels, including several sold to the French government.
Bingham died in [[1953]] at his home on [[Bayou Texar]], near the junction of East [[Gadsden Street]] and [[20th Avenue]]. He is buried in [[St. John's Cemetery]].
==Other images==
<gallery>
Image:FFBingham-1920s.jpg|Bingham in the 1920s
</gallery>
==References==
*[http://www.stjohnshistoriccemetery.com/pensacolas_heritages/business.htm St. John's Cemetery Foundation]
*Armstrong, Henry Clay. ''History of Escambia County''. St. Augustine: 1930. [http://fulltext10.fcla.edu/DLData/WF/WF00000021/file28.pdf p. 350-353]
{{refend}}
[[Category:Presbyterians|Bingham, Frasier Franklin]] [[Category:People buried in St. John's Cemetery|Bingham, Frasier Franklin]].[[Category:Lumber businesspeople|Bingham, Frasier Franklin]] [[Category:Shipping businesspeople|Bingham, Frasier Franklin]]
